Jennifer Van Syckle  0:00  
For a person with a large body, there can be challenges in life, some that you might not expect, and might not even realize. Today we're joined with our guest Yvette Yarber, who shares her journey with us. Thank you for joining us for another episode of Talking Health in the 406 where we're one community under the big sky. I'm your host, Jennifer Van Syckle. Longtime health care worker turned health educator

so that you're a Montana girl, right? Eastern Montana. Yep. ranching family. Yes,

Yvette Yarber  0:36  
ranching family outside a Circle. My family on my father's side rode with the first cattle herds from Texas to Montana, settled in Powder, River County, and then eventually moved up to McCone County where we've been ranching ever since my father and mother are still up there operating.

Jennifer Van Syckle  0:52  
And now you're based out of Bozeman. I am and I know we asked you to be a podcast guests because you kind of have some interesting experience and with with weight. And you kind of had some some struggles. Tell us your story. Start from the beginning with that. How did this all happen? Well,

Yvette Yarber  1:11  
I guess I don't ever remember a time when I wasn't hungry. I just I remember just feeling ravenous. And as a child, and I grew up about 15 miles outside of Circle. So it was just family. So it was just during that during the year, I had my grandma a couple miles away, and I had my uncle a couple miles farther. And then so I spent a lot of time on the horse and I spent a lot of time doing ranch stuff. But when I went to school, I became conscious that my body was different than everybody's body, it started way, way back pre pre kindergarten, actually, just the comments that you that you get being in a larger body. Like I said, I don't really remember a time where taking up space was an okay thing. I remember feeling ashamed of my body, walking in the room, in in kindergarten, and, you know, nobody knows, nobody knows what they're doing all the fat jokes, all the comments from the teachers, the comments from the family, nobody had any idea that that would be harmful. But in fact, it was it formed a part of my identity that took me a really long time, and a lot of services and a lot of work to get past and that that part of my identity is that my worth is based on a number of a scale and inversely proportionate to the amount of space that I that I take up.

Jennifer Van Syckle  2:34  
So when you look back at your photos from kindergarten, preschool like preschool pre Do you feel like you were a little overweight? Back then? Do you? Do you see it? Or do you look back and think what? What was everybody talking about?

Yvette Yarber  2:48  
Girl? No, I'm I'm 5' 10" You know, I have I'm like a big girl, I look back and I don't see obesity, what I see is someone in a larger body. And I but I wasn't able to make that. That translation especially in Circle where everybody kind of looks the same. And there's just one standard, you know, one social standard that you kind of have to adhere to not just not just you know, socially, but also physically. And, um, no, I felt huge. Oh, my goodness. I felt like enormous. I remember wondering if I was going to be able to get through the school door. And that just it simply wasn't true. But there was a there was a disconnect way back way back that I wasn't I wasn't aware of how much you know how, how big I was, I wasn't aware of my worth outside of the fact that I was the largest person in the room, the tallest person in the room. And I mean, even when I graduated from high school, there are probably only two other people, three people taller than me, even the guys and so just being big. was just not it wasn't it wasn't a good thing.

Jennifer Van Syckle  3:59  
So by high school, were you starting to feel you know, less self worth? We hear in the news about you know, teenagers and eating disorders and trying to look like the models or having low self esteem based on body image were you do you feel like as you went through your school years, it just kind of got worse on you.

Yvette Yarber  4:19  
From the time I woke up in the morning, I hated what I looked like I covered my mirrors. So I couldn't see myself when I walked through when I walked past. I was a you know I was a musician in high school in grade school might come from a family on my mom's side of Irish musicians. And so I was I was blessed that I always had music around me and my grandmother taught me to play piano when I was four and played the saxophone and so I had all this joy around music, beauty and joy but I would go to festivals and concerts and as a soloist and I couldn't I couldn't get past the fact that you know, my my suit that I had to wear for band was was wrong or that I looked, I felt like I looked enormous in this particular dress. And so I wasn't everything had to go through the filter of the size of my body, everything even even including being a, you know, a pretty, very good musician that that wasn't the most important thing. I was a good writer. I was pretty good in school. And none of those things were important. The only thing that was important was I never had a boyfriend. I never wore the Rocky Mountain jeans like the other girls. They didn't I just didn't like, I didn't have the right kind of body. And it took me decades to try to understand that that was a filter that that was a story. It was a construct that I had nothing to do with creating, and yet it was ruling my life. But I didn't know that. I didn't know that till well past college.

Jennifer Van Syckle  5:50  
And so how did that kind of come about? You went to obviously went to college. Was that how you landed in Bozeman? Did you go to from Circle to MSU? Or did you move out of state,

Yvette Yarber  6:01  
I started playing a fair bit at a symphony at this college in Iowa, Wartburg College, and it was a wonderful band, we had a, as a soloist in the symphony, and we were going to tour Europe, actually, or they did too, or Europe. But I, that was the first time that I made a life decision based on the size of my body, I quit the symphony as a soloist, with a three month free tour of Europe coming up because I felt fat in the symphony dress. And so I was so I got so depressed when I first went to college, because I'm coming from a small town. And even though there's not a lot of people, everybody knows, everybody, you know, I started school with the same people I graduated with my parents went to school together, our grandparents, our great grandparents, and I went from Circle to, you know, to the larger world. And I, that's when the depression got really, really bad. Because I no longer had that support system. And I, I left college with my first year without even taking the finals. And I remember my saxophone teacher was looking all over talk to my roommate trying to find me, but I just, I just got to the point where I couldn't leave the room without the voices, just saying, Oh, you're so huge, bla bla bla bla bla. It's a constant narrative that happens with someone with an eating disorder. And it comes before everything.

Jennifer Van Syckle  7:25  
I guess what comes to my mind is, was there something traumatic in your life that happened that you feel pivoted and turned your mind to this thought process? Or was this something that yeah, you truly just started that started as a seed as a youngster? And just kept growing? And growing? In hindsight, do you feel like you have clarity on that?

Yvette Yarber  7:45  
I do. Um, I would say, you know, being in and out of the eating disorder, and 12 Step rooms, the AA rooms. I mean, I would say nine out of 10, that's my general approximation of the people who are in those rooms have trauma. And so yeah, they do have a background of that. But there are people who don't. I mean, there are people who just, for whatever reason, have an inappropriate relationship with with their body and use food as a substance.

Jennifer Van Syckle  8:18  
So many of us have issues, you know, whether it's some sort of hoarding tendency, whether it's, I need a glass of wine every single night, maybe three. Yeah, it's we've all got our issues. But let's go back to so you left college after the first, you gave up a tour of Europe, you left without taking your finals? Did you come back to Circle? Or did you stay out in the world?

Yvette Yarber  8:39  
I stayed out in the world, I called my parents, I was just, I was looking for an identity. And I called my parents and I said, I'm going to New York and to be a nanny. My parents were like, No, you're not. I'm like, Yeah, I think I am. Does like No, no, honey, you're not. But I did. And unfortunately, it just started a cycle for many years of getting somewhere leaving, getting depressed and going somewhere else. And so the for many years, and I ended up from going from New York, I got a scholarship to a college in Montana to play music for this music department, who recruited me basically and then again, with the just feeling so huge, I couldn't leave my my house. I moved to Seattle. And then I the same thing happened. It was just a consistent pattern for me. And the first time I ended up in treatment, eating disorder treatment, I was a sophomore in high school, and I left Circle, I left high school for three months, I think it was and then from that point, I didn't go back to treatment until after the year 2000. So I basically from I graduated in 88. So from 88 until, oh, I'd say 91. I bounced around the country just trying to find I was depressed going from job to job. And then I ended up in Livingston and I remember driving by remember listening to my dad's Jimmy Buffett albums and that song Livingston Saturday Night. And I used to think out in circles, Man, that sounds fun. You know waking up at five o'clock in the morning to milk the cows and hearing stories and then listening to the music about Livingston and how fun that was. And I remember driving by with my boyfriend at the time, thinking let's just go there. Let's just go and see what Livingston if it is fun if it's like a wonderful place, and I pulled in at a, I pulled in at a music store. And my boyfriend stayed in the jeep and I went in there sort of mess around the keyboards and the, the owner, and we're just passing through on the way to the ranch. But the owner offered me a job in a band that he had just fired his keyboard player, and he had a gig in big timber that night. He's like, can you stay in play? I'm like, Yeah, so I got a place to live. And I joined the band. And things started getting better at that point. And I look back at why it started getting better. And it's because I started swimming. I started moving my body no matter what I felt. And Livingston was a safe place to do that I used to drive out to Chico. Once I started moving my body, my brain started working better. And my weight started balancing I stopped doing that, you know, gained 50 pounds, lose 50 pounds, gained 75 pounds, lose 20 pounds, I stopped doing that. And I also was playing music professionally, I was going to MSU and everything was good until my boyfriend died. And I from that point, I left college, I left my really good job, I left my wonderful band and all of my friends in this. And I moved to California, I got a good job. But the whole geographic cure didn't work then either I got a good job. But because of that, that particular trauma right there, one Huntly died. I gained about 200 pounds in two years. And I started drinking. And it was because that was my go to mechanism. Food was my go to in anytime anything went wrong. That was what I did. And I did it in spades when I was in California. And that that began my they talked me into getting a gastric bypass. And I'm in I'm in trauma read this point in 2001. And gaining massive amounts of weight drinking for the first, you know, I wasn't never really a huge drinker, but I started drinking and that I had my gastric bypass in 2001. And it herniated almost immediately. And I went to

Jennifer Van Syckle  12:45  
treatment and what is herniated? What does what does that mean with the guy like

Yvette Yarber  12:48  
the abdominal wall failed? Yep. And so I but it's, it's mainly because I didn't stop binging. When I had that surgery, it was like putting a bandaid overtop of a wound with gangrene in it. It just festered underneath it fester and fester. fester. And that's when the alcohol came in. And then I went to treatment for the first time, I think it was 2004. And that started this whole process of 14 different went 14 times to treatment over the next 10 and treatment for alcohol or treatment for eating. Initially, it was all eating disorder. But then the more I delved into my eating disorder, the more I started to drink. And plus, there's some evidence at this point, that when you have a gastric bypass, it changes your relationship with alcohol. And so yep, and but I mean, it makes sense because it changes your relationship with sugar. And that was I'm not sure if it was going to started because I started going to eating disorder treatment or if it was because my body was physiologically different. They rerouted the way food worked that the alcohol got so bad, but it did. And so then I started going to, you know, both eating disorder and alcohol treatment. And I every every year, my weight would fluctuate about 200 pounds like I would, I would gain weight, I would lose, you know, 70 pounds, 80 pounds, every time I went to treatment, I lost the minimum about 70 pounds, and then I would get home and I'd gain it back within a month, month and a half. And every time that I did this, it made my stomach worse the hernia it made it worse. And it just kept getting bigger and bigger until it became it became medically difficult for me to eat properly. And at that point, my weight had gotten all the way back to where it was at my highest and where I was have, you know it was it's some at one point I was in a wheelchair. And I use mobility devices. I couldn't go to the bathroom without massive massive pain. And I mean in terms of just like getting there in terms of getting out of bed in the middle of night and walking and if I fell I remember the last time I had to call the ambulance to help me get up. And, um, I ended up at finally after 14 different and I had really good insurance through my job. And so um, so I understand that privilege that I had, that I was able to go to some of the best places in the country and study work with some of the most prominent people that are in the field right now, or I would absolutely be dead, there is no question in my in my mind, because my weight was so high. One time when they took me to the ambulance in the ambulance to the hospital, I had registered my my blood sugar was so high, it couldn't register on the actual meter, which means it was over 600. And I'm just so I was so sick, so sick. And finally, I ended up at for the second time at this treatment center in LA. And they had a different kind of an approach that finally finally worked for me. And it was the approach that they had was a more holistic one, there was a spiritual program there they had, they had someone that five days or gym at this particular treatment center, they gave us a personal trainer twice a day. So I had someone there who was trained to work with peace, people who are morbidly obese, and show me how to healthfully and joyfully move my body. And in addition to that, I injected spirituality into my world. And those things allowed me to feel nourished enough, you know, in my spiritual world, in my creative world, in my mental health world, that I didn't look for nourishment, exclusively in food. And so that was a new concept, to me the idea of balance the idea of, what are you hungry for Yvettet? Are you hungry for this, you know, this food, this, this, this food that is not going to nourish you, what it's going to do is to allow you to dissociate from your body. So is that something is are you physically hungry right now, or what's lacking. And finally, I got to the point I was able to get to the point after Well, yours, I left there, not yours. I left there. I stayed a villa. Second time I went to that place in LA, I stayed almost a year. And by the time I left there, I was able to understand at least that it wasn't about the food.

Jennifer Van Syckle  17:20  
And how long do you usually stay at it? Is you just as long as you need or is there like a formulated time?

Yvette Yarber  17:26  
It depends on your insurance, I mean, okay, like minimum 30 days, some most eating disorder places want you to stay three months, I stayed longer, because my head, they called it a treatment resistant eating disorder. So I was I was able to, because of my insurance stayed longer.

Jennifer Van Syckle  17:46  
And so you were still in LA, you went through treatment, and it felt like finally you were getting the nourishment physically, mentally, what you needed,

Yvette Yarber  17:54  
I had the tools, not that I utilize them perfectly initially, I didn't I had to I'm not one of those people who are able to go the shortest distance between point A and point B, I have to, you know, go bang my head on every wall in the near vicinity. Before I actually do what I know I'm supposed to do, I'm pretty stubborn that way. And so I actually didn't get sober until later about a year later. And, but and I didn't start working actively on, on my spirituality and on my movement until about two years after I left treatment. And it took that two years of my weight going back up to where it was, I mean, back up to almost my high point. And the drinking starting again until I realized that I had a choice. And I had a choice to live or die. And it did come down to that it came down to a crossroads. I guess it was about four or five years ago. Now, five years ago now a crossroads. And even after I had been sober for a couple years, the eating disorder stuff was not getting better, the voices were not getting better. So I got a spiritual teacher and I started working on some of the messages that I was getting myself I started working on stories and how powerful stories were the you know, the the fact that I was the one that you know, I wasn't in current trauma, but I was still acting in a way that traumatized person acts. And I was weaving the prison that was holding me captive. Only me. I was doing it through stories and through accepting stories that other people gave me society stories because when you're when you have an eating disorder in a normal size body, it's a little bit different thing than when you have an eating disorder and you're in a large body because the body image and the body dysmorphia, the body image messages and the body dysmorphia is is not only created internally, it's enforced externally. Every place you go every time you walk out of the house, there is this massive amount of shame. And it took me a while to to read to start to be able to distinguish that The voice of shame. It was that was the biggest distinction that I made that allowed me to start getting better. And once I started dismantling some of those stories, again, that that I'm perpetuating every time that I agree on a story that I'm judging myself on, I'm making myself victim, I'm doing it. Oh, and the other thing was, every treatment that I went to, they had me on a whole bunch of medicine, a whole different. I mean, at one point, I was on eight different things, three medicine for psych meds, and then one to take care of the side effects for the psych meds and then another one to take care of the medicine that I took to take care of the side effects for these meds. And so I just stopped. And I went to I found a psychologist, psychiatrist in Bozeman, and he was the one who eventually helped me get sober. Basically, he had a little pill, he's like, Yvette I'm not letting taken, you're not taking these pills home. If you want to detox from alcohol, you're going to show up every day, take this little pill, so you can hopefully get the alcohol out of your system. And as the two weeks that was it, and my spiritual work had started. And then finally, I just I realized that I had to start moving, because no matter how much mental work I did, no matter how much I tried to manipulate my food, my body wasn't working right, my brain didn't work quite right. And I was at a point of almost stasis, like I would just I couldn't stand being in my body. And so I would just dissociated watch TV, or I would do something that completely not inhabit this body. And I don't once I once I determined that I needed to start moving or I was going to die. I started paying for this bougie gym here in Bozeman, and it was a expensive bougie gym. And I couldn't get past that. I couldn't get past the dressing room. I remember sitting there in my swimsuit in the dressing room hyperventilating, like I can't walk out there in front of all these thin fit. like Lululemon soccer moms, I can't do it. I feel like I'm an embodiment of their worst nightmare. And in fact, I kind of am I, you know, I would, I would even walking in the gym, I'd see people look at me, in my large body and, and there's a disdain that comes it's not their fault. But it's a it's a social sexual norm that we have in this country. And everybody agrees to it. It's an agreement that we all make. And the agreement is that numbers on a scale, denote health. And we know that that's not necessarily true at this point. So I was never able to at this particular bougie gym in Bozeman, never able to actually swim. Eight months, I paid for that gym, and I couldn't get past the I couldn't get past the dressing room. I couldn't pass the shame, again, that shame story. And so a friend of mine, I used to work for an organization in Livingston that serves people with disabilities. And I used to take clients over to Bozeman when I lived in Livingston to swim at it was a hotel pool at the time. And this was back in the 90s. And I remember thinking, Wow, these guys in a wheelchair, they're able to get into this water and we can start moving their limbs around we can stick and just the joy on their face. And so when I after I quit go into there quit trying to go to the gym in Bozeman, the executive director of that organization in Livingston city, but why don't you try Eagle Mount? We used to take us to take clients there, and they have a pool now. And so I contacted Eagle mouth, and at the time, they said, Yeah, come on down and get a doctors. You have to get your doctor's referral, you have to meet the mission statement, the criteria on their mission statement, but come on down. Well, again, it took me a year. To get there. I would call the I would call the aquatics director and say I just you know, a swim suits network and I'm not coming in or you know, something, I just there was always an excuse, but I would get in my car to get there. And I have this hyperventilating like they're just gonna I'm gonna I had this thought that I would infect everybody with my fatness. It's just ridiculous. I I look back on it now. And I'm like, wow, that is distorted Yvette

Jennifer Van Syckle  24:10  
you went through all the work of you got your doctor's note you made sure you found a way to meet their criteria, all that legwork, all of

Yvette Yarber  24:15  
all of all of that. I didn't know that Eagle Mount was different. I didn't know that it was a safe place until I didn't know and once I started going, I realized that it was like this, this I call it lagoon of misfit mermaids. You know, there are people there who are are able to and they're my people you know they are not able to do to access recreational activities that that normal people in normal healthy bodies are able to access

Jennifer Van Syckle  24:47  
so that how did you get past that year? I mean, how did you get that first day to get yourself to go finally and get over that hump you had that year then what was it wasn't just like I gotta do it or

Yvette Yarber  25:00  
It was a cowboy up moment. Okay, it was a cowboy up moment. And it was just like you bet you, you have to do this, you have to do this. And so that became became the sort of the catalyst for me to get to where I am right now, which is much closer to homeostasis with my body. You know, I have I'm coming up on six years sober, and I've lost a bunch of weight. And I have, unfortunately, because of all of the, the fluctuations with my, my body weight, my hernia has gotten really bad. And so I have, I've been a surgeon's all over the country to tide try to get it repaired, and nobody will take it, nobody will take my case because of the severity of it. And so I ended up at Mayo in Rochester. And the first surgeon said no, but then hooked me up with a superstar surgeon that is going to fix it. And so that's kind of the surgery where they're going to, you know, kind of repair the damage that I've done just feels like a closing closing of a chapter. We're going

Jennifer Van Syckle  26:07  
to pause there and rejoining that with her story on our next episode. She's given us a lot of great points to think about, and a lot of good information. If you'd like to learn more, visit our website at Talkinghealthinthe406.mt.gov. And join us again in our following episode, as Yvette continues her story, and I guarantee you, some of it will probably open your eyes to some point you've never even realized you don't want to miss it. So thank you for joining us for this episode of Talking Health in the 406 where we're one community under the Big Sky. Until next time, take care

Transcribed by https://otter.ai